


Unexpected (But Not Unwelcome)

by RoseByAnyOtherName17



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Ghouls, Learning To Hunt, Loss of Powers, M/M, Post-Season/Series 08, the bunker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-16 23:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8122504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseByAnyOtherName17/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName17
Summary: Gabriel isn't really sure what he's doing here, when the last thing he remembers is being stabbed by his brother. But the Apocalypse was averted, so the Winchesters must have done something right.
Well, except for the fact that he's lost almost all of his powers. He's pretty sure he's going to blame them for that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As always, hope you enjoy!

Honestly, this wasn’t what Gabriel had been expecting at all.

 

Coming back from the dead had been disorienting in itself, considering that his own sword had been plunged into his chest (he was so getting back at Lucifer for that). But landing right in the middle of one of the nicest underground libraries he had ever seen—and he had seen a surprising amount—to the sight of Dean Winchester in a bathrobe just loosely tied at the waist was ridiculously ironic.

 

They stared at each other for a long moment before Dean shook his head. “Nope. I am clearly not awake enough for this, if I’m awake at all. Nuh uh. Sam can deal with you.”

 

“Sam can deal with who?” a voice said behind Gabriel, and he turned around to see the Winchester himself coming down an ornate staircase that the archangel (was he still one?) that he hadn’t even noticed. Sam stopped dead, one foot hovering over the next step, looking like he’d seen a ghost. Gabriel really couldn’t blame him.

 

“Whoever brought me back has a terrible sense of humor,” he muttered, throwing a hand in the air. “Alright, I’m ready. Throw it all at me. Whatever you need.”

 

“That’s not necessary,” a third voice said to his left, and he didn’t even have to turn his head to know it was Castiel. He did anyways, and was pleasantly surprised to see him wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that looked suspiciously like something Dean was supposed to be wearing, rather than the trench coat he’d worn for so long. Castiel stopped a few feet away, eyebrows scrunched in a way that would’ve been adorable if he wasn’t Gabriel’s sibling…well, sort of anyway. “How did you get in here?”

 

“I have no idea,” Gabriel said grumpily. “The last thing I remember is being stabbed.”

 

Dean walked off somewhere, muttering about needing coffee, and Sam came slowly down the stairs until he was standing right in front of Gabriel. He reached out a tentative hand and lightly touched Gabriel’s shoulder, as if to make sure he was real. Then his arm dropped and he was frowning. “You’re saying you’ve been dead for nearly four years and you didn’t even notice?”

 

“I guess not,” Gabriel answered. “So tell me, did you two idiots figure out the apocalypse or is this some sort of bomb shelter?” He looked around. “It’s not too shabby. I’m pleasantly surprised in your choice of hideout for once.”

 

“It’s not a bomb shelter,” Sam said, clearly still trying to process what the hell was happening. “It’s—yeah, no, Dean’s right, I can’t do this right now.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair and yawned widely. “Nope. Okay, follow me. If you’re still real after a few hours of sleep then I’ll consider filling you in.”

 

“Just you? Doesn’t Dean get some sort of choice in this?” But Gabriel was following Sam anyways. It was weird, being in a place on Earth that he’d never been before. There weren’t a lot of them left anymore. Which begged the question: where the hell was he? And why was he there instead of in Heaven or Hell or anywhere else?

 

“I don’t know why you’re here,” Sam said grumpily, but Gabriel decided to believe that it was because he was clearly exhausted and not because Gabriel was talking out loud without realizing it. “But Cas sleeps now, so unless you’re upgraded to normal angel or archangel or whatever upon return, I’m going to assume you do too.” He walked past several doors, stopping to open one. “I’m next door and Dean’s a few doors across the hall.” Gabriel watched him walk around the corner and return with a pile of pillows and blankets in his arms, only to have them dropped unceremoniously into his own. “There’s a bathroom at the end of the hall. I’ll get clothes for you to sleep in if you want.”

 

“I usually go commando,” Gabriel said casually, trying to see if he could get Sam to blush.

 

He didn’t. “Then I’ll get you a robe for when you get up,” he sighed instead. He shoved his hair back again. “Ask questions now or shut your mouth until I wake up later.”

 

“Actually, I do have one,” Gabriel said, holding a finger up and grinning. “What’s with the hair?”

 

Sam’s door slammed shut in his face.

 

“Well your manners certainly haven’t improved,” he muttered, turning to his own room. He considered making the bed up, but couldn’t get his fingers to work the fitted sheet to the corners of the mattress and gave up, choosing instead to throw the pile of blankets onto the bed haphazardly and crawl into them. He thought his head would be a whirl of confused questions, but it was all he could do to place a pillow under his head before he fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

When he woke up, it was because someone had opened the door and was holding something over the blankets that smelled too good to resist. “Get up,” the same someone said. Gabriel made grabby hands for the plate, sitting up against the headboard, but Sam pulled out of reach. “I put stuff for you in the bathroom. Shower, use them, and then you’ll get food. Not before.”

 

“This is the worst hotel ever,” Gabriel grumbled, but he crawled out anyways, stretching his arms over his head. Sam was frowning at him again. “What? Is there something on my face?”

 

“Besides the line of drool, no,” Sam quipped, and Gabriel automatically reached up to scrub his cheek to make sure. “No, I just thought you said you slept naked.”

 

“Is that why you came in here to wake me?” Gabriel said, winking suggestively. “If you want to see me naked, Sam, all you have to do is ask.”

 

Sam rolled his eyes. “You wish. You’ve got about fifteen minutes before Dean decides to eat your breakfast, so hurry up.”

 

Gabriel did as Sam said, surprised by the fact that the water pressure and temperature were about as close to perfect as you could get. For an archangel who had lived in the lap of luxury for centuries, that was a big deal. When he got out and found the fluffy towels, he decided he was staying here forever. As long as “here” wasn’t some sort of torture dungeon. He was never sure with the Winchesters, and four years was enough time to turn already-dangerous hunters into psychopaths, depending on what they’d seen in that amount of time.

 

He found his way to the kitchen just in time to snag his plate from Dean. “Alright, I’ve proved I’m not a hallucination or some weird drug-induced dream. So is anyone going to tell me what the hell I’ve walked into here?”  


“You didn’t walk,” Dean pointed out, flipping a page in a leather-bound book without looking up. “You appeared. And I believe that Sam is in charge of you.”

 

“No one is in charge of me,” Gabriel protested.

 

“Sam is until we’ve decided what to do with you.”

 

“You realize I’m one of the most powerful beings in the world, don’t you?” Gabriel felt his eyes glow, let his wings stretch out behind him even though Dean couldn’t see. “I could snap my fingers and you would be dust.”

 

“That’s one thing that’s changed,” Castiel said from the corner, where he was looking at another book like it had personally offended him. Gabriel felt a pang for his poor vessel’s vocal cords; that grating tone could not be good for them. “It seems to have affected you as well. You slept for about six hours.”

 

“So? I used to sleep all the time.”

 

“Because you wanted to,” Castiel remarked, finally looking up to meet Gabriel’s stare. “Am I wrong?”

 

Gabriel clearly wasn’t going to get these two to make any sort of sense anytime soon. “Fine, where’s Sam?”

 

“Library,” Dean told him dismissively. “Down the hall, you’ll walk right in.”

 

Gabriel saw the look the two of them exchanged: Castiel concerned, Dean smugly amused. He ignored it, choosing instead to go to the library and locate Sam. He always had seemed like the type to spend all of his time in a library, Gabriel mused as he walked in. Sam didn’t even look up, just pulled out the chair next to him.

 

Gabriel bypassed the chair to hop up on the table, swinging his legs back and forth. “So I hear you’re my keeper.”

 

“No one’s your keeper,” Sam said, flipping a page. “Especially not me.”

 

“Then why won’t Dean tell me what the hell is going on?” Gabriel demanded.

 

“Because he doesn’t like you.” Sam finally closed the book and looked up at him, lip curling in a smirk. “For the record, I’m not that fond of you either, but I still have an unfortunate inclination to help the people who’ve helped us before. Even if they did threaten us bodily harm more than once.”

 

“There can’t be many of them left alive,” Gabriel remarked. “You usually like to kill them.”

 

“Dean called you the one that got away once,” Sam told him. “Although I don’t think he meant it the way it sounded.”

 

Gabriel sighed. “So what is this place then?”

 

“The Men of Letters bunker,” Sam said immediately, waving a hand as if to encompass the whole thing. “Apparently Dean and I are legacies, meaning it’s been in our family for centuries. Turns out it wasn’t just on Mom’s side of the family.”

 

“So you live here?”

 

“It’s better than dragging everything around from motel to motel,” Sam said wryly. “Cas lives here too now. We get the occasional visit from Charlie and Kevin. You’re the first angel to get in that hasn’t been invited though, so I think Cas is going to check on some of those wards later on.”

 

Gabriel nodded slowly. “I take it you averted the apocalypse.”

 

“We also sort of let a bunch of monsters out of Purgatory,” Sam said, “but that was mostly Cas’s fault. He tried to be your dad to win a war in Heaven and it didn’t work out so well.” He tapped his fingers on the table next to Gabriel’s thigh. “We met another prophet, which would be Kevin. He tried to help us close the gates to Hell, which I died doing. Dean stuffed an angel in me though, so he fixed me up, and now here we are. Heaven’s closed up, some crazy douche angel used Cas to do that so all your siblings are pretty much out for his blood. You’ve missed a lot.”

 

Gabriel closed his eyes. “I think I’d prefer the long version, if you don’t mind. From what it sounds like, all you three managed to do was nearly destroy the world a few more times, just with varying results and efforts.”

 

Sam frowned. “That’s…accurate.” He sighed. “You’re a dick.”

 

“I believe you’ve told me that before,” Gabriel said cheerfully. “Now, c’mon. It’s story time. I haven’t heard a good story in centuries.”

 

Sam rolled his eyes, but gestured for Gabriel to follow him. They ended up in a cozy little space with a TV and a couch and several armchairs. Gabriel settled in one of these, whereas Sam stretched out on the couch. “Okay, so after you died, we did manage to get all of the Horseman’s rings. Dean actually got Death’s willingly, because Lucifer bound Death to him and apparently he didn’t really like that.”

 

“Sounds like Death,” Gabriel said thoughtfully, but fell silently when Sam gave him a look.

 

“So, I did wind up letting Lucifer in, and gained control over him long enough to throw him and Michael both into the cage, just like you said. Cas pulled me out, kind of, but he left behind my soul, so I wandered around for a year soulless and hunting with mine and Dean’s grandfather, who’d also been resurrected. Dean was with Lisa and Ben that year, until I went and got him, and then he was the one who figured out something was wrong with me. He made a deal with Death to get my soul back.”

 

Gabriel frowned. “Why the hell aren’t you in a padded room?”

 

“Well, there was a wall of sorts so I couldn’t remember,” Sam explained. “I still ended up in a mental ward for awhile, but that was because Lucifer wouldn’t let me sleep.”

 

Gabriel blinked. “I’m missing something here.”

 

Sam sighed. “Shit, yeah. Sorry, a lot happened. Cas kind of douched out, started working with Crowley to get Heaven back under control, and when me and Dean found out, we tried to stop him, and, well, he took the wall out of my head. I managed to keep it under control for awhile, out of necessity, because when Cas took all the souls out of Purgatory, he took out something called Leviathans too.”

 

Gabriel grimaced. “Those bastards. What did they do?”

 

“Tried to turn the human population into a meal, basically. They took over a lot of important people, like Dick Roman, people who had power. That’s how we met Charlie, actually; she’s kind of a genius. She hacked into his files and nearly got killed doing it for us, but we’ve seen her since and she’s doing well. She likes to visit us pretty often, usually when Dean calls her and tells her that we’ve got a tech issue.” Sam grinned. “It’s pretty much just an excuse to see her.”

 

“So your brother and Charlie are…?”

 

Sam burst out laughing. “Oh, no, absolutely not!” He took a moment to regain composure. “He’s definitely not her type.”

 

“I thought Dean was everyone’s type,” Gabriel deadpanned. Sam was clearly waiting for him to catch on, and after a second he did. “So you’re saying that they share the same type then.”

 

“I’m not really sure anymore.” Sam fiddled with a loose string on the couch. Gabriel was about to ask him to elaborate when he changed the subject. “So the Leviathans killed Cas and got into the water supply and I stopped sleeping because I was having very vivid hallucinations of your brother.” He frowned. “He really liked Stairway to Heaven. Anyways, Cas took those away and for awhile he went kind of…pacifist, I guess, until we found Kevin and took out Dick, and he and Dean went to Purgatory for a year. And then Crowley—you remember him, hated Lucifer, wanted to be King of Hell—he achieved that—he kidnapped Kevin.”

 

He went quiet for a few minutes. “So what’d you do about all that?” Gabriel prompted. “Summoned another demon, performed ritualistic sacrifice? You shot Crowley, right?”

 

Sam shook his head. “I stopped.”

 

Gabriel blinked. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “You…stopped?” He wanted to say something sarcastic, but his mind went blank at the idea of Sam just…stopping.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Now, Gabriel could be an asshole. Even before he’d decided he liked Earth better than Heaven, he had been a bit of a smartass. Telling the Virgin Mary she was pregnant? Still one of his greatest memories of all time. At the moment though, he still wasn’t sure if the Winchesters were planning to kill him or set him loose on the world again (he highly doubted that would happen anytime soon), so he didn’t ask. Not because Sam looked like a kicked puppy right then, but out of sheer self-preservation.

 

“Well, something must’ve happened,” he said instead. “You’re here now, aren’t you?”

 

“A vampire helped Dean get out of Purgatory,” Sam said, sounding relieved. “Cas got out later because of some of the other angels. Assholes, again, no offense, but this one bitch—Naomi—mind controlled him and he almost killed Dean because we had a tablet to close up Hell forever.”

 

“Naomi was always eager to please,” Gabriel muttered under his breath. He’d never really liked her. “So how come Dean isn’t doing the hellfire rumba right now?”

 

“You’ve used that one before,” Sam remarked, smiling a little, then straightening his face as if remembering that he wasn’t supposed to like Gabriel yet. Before dying he would’ve just read his mind to check, but Gabriel felt oddly limited. He didn’t like it. “Uh, Kevin managed to escape from Crowley and read the tablet, and I tried to close the gates, but that didn’t work out.”

 

“So demons still roam the earth, huh?” Gabriel said dryly.

 

“And Cas is kind of a wanted man,” Sam told him. “And human. Your buddy Metatron took his grace and you guys are kind of stuck on Earth for the moment.”

 

“And you almost died,” Gabriel said. “Right? I mean, trying to close up the gates of Hell, Sam? That couldn’t have been good for your health.” He was trying to be snarky, but it wasn’t coming across as well as he’d liked. Dying put him out of practice, he guessed.

 

“Dean let an angel possess me for awhile,” Sam said, looking like he was trying very hard not to have an opinion. “We fixed each other, a bit. Then he used me to do Metatron’s bidding, til I kicked him out, because he tried to kill Kevin and that didn’t really sit right with me. And…here we are. You’re alive, we’re alive, God is still out of the picture, and once again the world is at a place where one fuckup will kill it.”

 

“So I was right,” Gabriel said brightly. “You did break the world again.”

 

Sam glared at him.

 

Gabriel clapped his hands. “Right,” he said. “Well, I’ll be out of your hair—maybe not yours, you could snare rabbits in hair like yours, Sammy—”

 

“Don’t call me Sammy,” Sam said immediately.

 

“As soon as I can check the extent of the damage done to me through dying and being cut off from Heaven,” Gabriel went on, ignoring him. “I really need to know what I’m going to need to defend myself against the monsters that’ll want to know how I came back.”

 

Sam stood up as if to block him from leaving, which he seemed to realize a moment later that he couldn’t actually do that because, duh, archangel. But he stepped in front of Gabriel anyway. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he said uncertainly. “You’re—you’re kind of the only archangel left. And you’re right—you don’t know how well you can defend yourself. If you can.”  


“I can,” Gabriel scoffed, snapping his fingers once. Sam flinched, but nothing happened. Or, nothing intentional. The lights went out all over the bunker, and somewhere Dean yelled, “What the hell?” but Sam wasn’t swept against a wall the way Gabriel had been going for. He clicked his fingers again, because he could hear Dean stomping towards them, and the electricity came back.

 

Sam looked worried. “Stop that,” Gabriel snapped at him. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

 

Castiel trailed in just behind Dean, stopping close enough to him so that their shoulders brushed even standing still. “I think the fall has affected you as well,” he said softly, looking at Gabriel with a mixture of concern and sadness.

 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Okay, so I’m a little powered down. At least I’m not completely human.” He regretted it when Castiel’s face fell. “Look, I—I think we can all agree that me being here won’t be good for any of us. Someone will wind up dead or hanging upside down from a rafter.”

  
But even Dean was shaking his head. “No, I think you should stay,” Sam said. “You can assess yourself here, gain some strength back if you’ve got it. If it comes down to it, maybe we can teach you some tricks.” He looked uncomfortable saying that, and Gabriel wanted to prove to him just how much more powerful he was than Sam. But, for one thing, he was pretty sure that wasn’t an option right now, and two, being better than humans wasn’t something he prided himself on anymore, maybe never. Going up against Lucifer had proven that, if nothing else.

 

Sam and Dean looked lost, like they weren’t sure what to do with him, and he wasn’t surprised. He made their lives hell back before they knew he was an angel, and he’d never been an ordinary angel to their standards. Neither had Castiel, but they grew to trust him. Maybe because he fucked up just as much as they did but kept fighting anyways. He wasn’t their friend. He might as well mean nothing to them.

 

But Castiel stepped forward. “Come on,” he said to his brother. “I’ll get you settled in.”

 

Gabriel noticed that his eyes met Dean’s as they left the room, and the look made him feel terribly alone.

 

 

 

 

A routine of sorts settled after that. Gabriel got to keep the room next to Sam’s (he ignored the strange relief he felt at that) and he decided that morning showers were pretty much the best thing ever. A few days after his sudden resurrection, Dean and Castiel went to Illinois for a hunt. Sam told him after they left that they were easing Cas into hunting, after he’d insisted that he couldn’t just remain in the bunker all the time. “If I’m going to live with hunters, I might as well be one!” he’d apparently shouted at Dean after they’d left him, yet again, with the research. So they started off easy, taking out spirits, a nest of vampires, stuff they thought Cas could handle with limited experience, and in between they (mostly Dean) taught him how to shoot, to fight hand-to-hand without angel powers.

 

“He’s been coming along,” Sam said with a proud little smile.

 

“You’re not going to try and teach me to hunt, are you?” Gabriel scowled at the thought.

 

“No,” Sam replied, suddenly stiff, and walked away.

 

It didn’t take long for Gabriel to figure out that trying to do big things left him exhausted for hours. Even turning on and off the electricity of the bunker took more effort than it should have. After a few days, he snuck into the shooting range and grabbed a pistol, not really paying attention, and tried to blow the head off of one of the little target men. He barely grazed the shoulder of it.

 

“You’re holding it wrong,” Sam commented from the doorway, and Gabriel whirled around, still holding the gun up. “Hey, calm down,” he added, holding his hands up, but the corner of his mouth was twitching. “Dean and Cas are on their way back. I was going to go pick up some groceries since we’re running a bit low. Want to come with? Figured you might want to get out for a bit.”

 

“You’re not afraid I’m going to take off running and feed another dick to an alligator?” Gabriel mocked.

 

“It’ll be your funeral,” was all Sam said, before turning and leaving again. Gabriel hesitated, then put the safety on the gun and followed.

 

Since Gabriel lost the ability to snap himself up some snacks out of thin air, he’d been missing his daily dose of chocolate lately. He didn’t realize just how much though until he tried to get all of them and Sam made him pick only five. “We’re not made of money, Gabriel,” he admonished.

 

“No, just the people you scam,” Gabriel muttered, which earned him a nudge with Sam’s elbow. He turned in surprise, because a week ago Sam was still treading carefully, like he might decide to explode them all (which Lucifer had apparently done to Castiel—he was really going to have to have another talk with his brother if he ever saw him again.) But now it was like he was getting used to the idea that Gabriel might be more…human. He was pretty upset about that.

 

(He was also just a little happy about being treated like this, like a friend. Or something close to one.)

 

After ten minutes of agonizing over what to get, Sam said, “You like Snickers and Three Muskateers right?”

 

“And Kit Kats.”

 

Sam held up a bag filled with all three. “Think this’ll tide you over till the next trip?”

 

“Two and I’ll make sure it does.”

 

And again, to his surprise, Sam grabbed two and headed for checkout.

 

The ride home was quiet except for the music playing on the radio, and they were unpacking groceries in the kitchen, Sam directing Gabriel where to put things, when he finally spoke up. “Thanks.” He meant it for more than just the candy, and he couldn’t make himself look Sam in the eye when he said it, but he caught the small smile on the taller man’s face as he turned back to the pantry.

 

Gabriel kept trying to teach himself how to shoot with various guns he found, but figured out that it wasn’t that easy. It irritated him, because he knew the concept, knew exactly how the bullet would leave the gun and blow the head off of that freaking 2D mannequin, but actually doing it was another matter altogether. Without being at full capacity, it took more than sheer will to make it happen. He had to actually make his body do what he wanted it to, had to learn which bullets went to which gun and which gun was meant for what type of shooting and a million other things.

 

And that was just guns. He sort of wanted to learn how to use that knife that the boys kept with them for demons.

 

When he snuck down three weeks after returning from the dead (or wherever the hell angels went when they died), he found a gun already waiting at his usual spot. A sheet of paper had been slipped under it, with what looked like…instructions. Instructions of how to hold it, to aim, to reload, to take it apart, to clean it, the works. He left a box of M&Ms on Sam’s bed later, and he smiled a little when he saw Sam eating them that night.

 

 

 

 

“I hate everything.”

 

“Well everything hates you too.”

 

Sam shot him a glare and Dean sighed. “Fine. Not everything hates you. But strep throat does, obviously.”

 

Gabriel glowered at Castiel, who was standing in the doorway. “This is all your fault,” he grumbled, burrowing deeper into the nest of blankets he’d created for himself in what had quickly become his favorite armchair in the room that he had first learned what he’d missed over the years. His hair was tousled and his throat hurt with every word. No, it didn’t hurt. It rasped. It grated. It burned with the fire of a thousand suns.

 

Well, maybe not that. He’d have to ask Dean what that felt like when the hunter didn’t hate him quite so much.

 

“Look, one of us can stay back,” Sam said, worried. “At least until Charlie gets here.”

 

Gabriel moved his expression of death to him. “I don’t need someone to take care of me. I’m not a child.”

 

“That’s not—” Sam sighed. “Okay. Look, Charlie is supposed to be here tomorrow night. We’ll be back in about a week. Just…no guns or knives or swords or anything dangerous until you’re better, okay?”

 

“No shit, Sherlock,” Gabriel snarked. He couldn’t have done any of those things if he wanted to. Every time he stood up his head spun and he felt sluggish and achy. He regretted the words for an instant when Sam’s eyes flashed, but his expression was carefully neutral again and he was saying goodbye and walking out the door.

 

Dean raised an eyebrow at Gabriel. “Alright, I know you’re feeling all sorts of crap right now, but Sam’s just worried about you. It goes against his good-person code to leave you alone while you’re like this. And no offense, but he’s kind of the only person here who actually likes you somewhat.” He shuddered. “You got points back for fighting Lucifer, which, thanks for that, again, but you lost about half of those for the porno.”

 

“I helped you lock my brother up in Hell!” Gabriel coughed in indignation.

 

“Which is why you only lost half,” Dean said. “Give Sam a call later so he knows you’re alright, because now he won’t want to do it himself.”

 

“Fine,” Gabriel mumbled, closing his eyes. “Go away. Your face makes my eyes hurt.”

 

“There’s soup in the fridge,” Castiel said softly after Dean walked away. “And tea for your throat.”

 

“Thanks, bro.”

 

And then he was alone.

 

He was pretty sure he fell asleep for a little while, because when he woke up his stomach was broadcasting its hunger to the world. Well, to the room, in the form of noises that Gabriel was almost positive he had heard come from a blue whale once upon a time. He stumbled to his feet, keeping one blanket draped around his shoulders, and shuffled to the kitchen to heat up some of the soup left over from Castiel’s own bout of strep a few weeks before. It hadn’t hit Gabriel quite as badly, since he still held some of his heavenly power, but it was still extremely unpleasant because he’d never experienced anything like it. Pain he could handle. But this slow, shivery ache was defeating him.

 

After eating he took a bubble bath (which he hadn’t even had to ask Sam to buy; he had found it a week ago in the back of the cupboard and persuaded Cas to take one). He was settling in for another nap right there in the water when the phone Sam had gotten him the second week started buzzing. He didn’t recognize the number, but he hadn’t actually put any contacts in yet under any names, so he answered without wondering who it was. “I’m fine,” he said immediately.

 

“I figured you would be, if Sam and Dean left you on your own while you’re sick,” an unfamiliar voice said on the other end.

 

“Who is this?”

 

“Charlie,” she said cheerfully. “I take it that I’m talking to Gabriel, almighty archangel, Messenger of God?”

 

“That’s the one,” Gabriel answered, relaxing back again. “I hear you’re a lesbian.”

 

There was a bark of laughter. “Among other things,” she giggled. “Look, I won’t be there till tomorrow, but I was wondering if there was anything I should bring with me. I know the boys don’t have a wide selection of things to do while you’re sick and I didn’t know what you liked.”

 

“Well, I’ve never been sick before.” He felt a pang of anger at the words, but he kept it to himself. “So I don’t know what I like.”

 

“Everything then!” Charlie exclaimed. “Alrighty then, Gabe, prepare for the week of a lifetime!”

 

“I’ll be extremely disappointed if this isn’t one of the best weeks of my life,” Gabriel deadpanned. “I say one of the best because I’ve around since before Earth has. There’s been some pretty good weeks.” As an afterthought, “Did you call me Gabe?”

 

“Yes I did,” Charlie said. “And you haven’t met me yet. I’ve got some pretty good stories about the boys. Anyways, I gotta run! Bye!”

 

It was probably one of the more interesting phone conversations he had ever had, at any rate.

 

 

 

 

He did wind up calling Sam that night to let him know that he hadn’t died via drowning in the bathtub, which drew a huff of air that he suspected was a laugh, though he couldn’t tell without being able to see Sam’s face. He replayed the noise in his head for a few minutes trying to figure out, until he realized with a jolt what that soft affection in his chest was, and then he rolled over and refused to think about anything at all.

 

If possible, the next day was even worse. His eyes were crusty with sleep when he woke up, his throat was still stinging with every swallow, and he learned that eating cereal while sick was one of the worst ideas ever. “Is it too late to quit humanity?” he groaned when Sam called him around noon.

 

“There’s suicide,” he heard Dean say a little distantly, and figured he must be on speaker phone when a moment later he muttered, “Don’t kill yourself. It’ll hurt Sam’s feelings.”

 

Sam kept the call short, because apparently there had been another hospitalization the night before and they were no closer to figuring out what it could be. Gabriel tried to ignore the slight tang of disappointment in his mouth when he hung up and focused instead on watching one of the movies he had gotten from Sam’s room. When he finished that one, he watched another, and then fell asleep until he heard the front door opening and someone call out, “I come bearing soup!”

 

He tried to call out, but he hadn’t spoken a word in hours and his throat was too dry. He got to his feet slowly and shuffled in the direction of the kitchen. He came upon a little redhead unpacking food from bags and putting it into cupboards. She turned when she saw him in the corner of her eye. “Oh, hi! Totally awesome to meet you.”

 

Gabriel picked up a package of Oreos and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think this is healthy sick food.”

 

Charlie leaned over the table and snatched it away, though to be fair it really didn’t take a lot of effort. “That’s for the boys,” she explained at his indignant expression. “Well, for Sam mostly. Actually, you know what, I should probably hide those.”

 

Gabriel choked on a laugh and wound up coughing painfully instead. When he recovered, Charlie was looking at him with sad eyes. “Don’t look at me like that,” he grumbled. “I’m still an archangel.”

 

“Well obviously.” She rolled her eyes. “Wings or not, you’re Gabriel the Messenger, the Furious, Norse God of Sex or something like that. No, I’m disappointed because that was the first time I ever heard an angel laugh and you’re too sick to test my theory of the sound breaking windows or shutting off the lights or something.”

 

“I can do that,” Gabriel offered. “It kind of wears me out though.”

 

“And that’s counterproductive, so we’ll save that for another time.” Charlie glanced over at him contemplatively. “You look like a Game of Thrones kind of guy.”

  
“I wouldn’t know,” Gabriel said glumly. “I got killed before the first season.”

  
Charlie grinned. “We’ll see how it goes. You hungry?”

 

She had him settled on the couch (Sam’s couch, he had started referring to it as in his head) in ten minutes with a bowl of soup and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was absorbed into Game of Thrones almost immediately, and quickly made the connection to the War of the Roses centuries before. He told Charlie as much, and it was her turn to raise an eyebrow at him. “Haven’t you read the books?”

 

“I didn’t have a lot of time for reading, what with being on the run and all,” he said thoughtfully. “Especially because the Norse gods are not fond of anything really human related, unless it’s sacrificial.”

 

“I kind of wanted to ask about that, actually, if you don’t mind too much.” Charlie turned to face him and paused the show on Jon Snow’s face. “About the being a Norse god thing. Sam mentioned you were pretending to be Loki when I asked him about the Supernatural books, because you showed up in those a few times, and it wasn’t totally clear if you’re actually the original Loki, or if there was another and you killed him or something.”

 

Gabriel was surprised. “That’s what you want to know? You don’t want to know if Jesus was really a virgin when he died or if the Mongols were really as invincible as they appear to be in your history?”

 

Charlie shrugged. “Maybe if I were hanging out with the Mongols or Jesus right now. But when it comes down to it, my life has become insane enough that I might actually meet them one day. And I can’t imagine that a lot of people are interested in your personal life.”

 

“Not a lot of people are aware of my actual existence, especially since I’ve been dead for years.”

 

“Exactly.” Charlie grinned. “So, come on. Real Loki, or impersonator? Did you actually have children? Do the Thor movies have any semblance of truth?”

 

Gabriel decided that he liked this girl. She asked question after question, and if he showed even the remotest discomfort with one (she was apparently perceptive), she moved onto something else.

 

“So what do you think about Sam and Dean?” she inquired hours later, after another three episodes of Game of Thrones and three bowls of soup.

 

He hesitated. He hadn’t actually really thought about it, not wanting to discover that he actually hated them or—worse—cared. “They’re bearable when they aren’t trying to kill me,” he settled on finally. “They’re exhausting when they’re out for your blood.”

 

“Well, to be fair, you did kill Dean,” Charlie pointed out. “I think Sam kind of had a reason to be gunning for you.”

 

“Yeah I know, I was a major dick,” he said, waving a hand. “I was undercover at the time. And they were unhealthily codependent.”

 

“They still are,” Charlie said reluctantly, like she wanted to defend them but couldn’t actually do it without sounding like a filthy liar. Which, she would be, Gabriel reflected. “But not quite so much anymore, I think. Dean stopped hunting for awhile when Sam flung himself into the cage. Got himself a lady. Sam did the same when Dean was in Purgatory.”

 

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Dean stuffed an angel into Sam so he wouldn’t die again.”

 

“Well, nobody said they were perfect.”

 

They managed to get through the entirety of season one before Gabriel felt the need to sleep again, and then he only went to his room because Charlie insisted he would get a crick in his neck. “I’m an archangel,” he pointed out.

 

“You’ve got strep throat.”

 

He went to bed.

 

 

 

 

Charlie introduced him to the Supernatural books over the next few days. Gabriel enjoyed the detail of them, learning more about Sam and Dean than he would have any other way, and he was actually kind of hurt that Sam had to kill Madison the way that he did. He felt a pang for the man, which he tried to shake off without much success.

 

Dean called Charlie late in the afternoon. “Sup,” she answered.

 

He filled her in on the case, and then Gabriel heard Sam ask about him. “He’s better, I think,” Charlie replied. “Gabe? How you feeling?”

 

“Considerably entertained,” he said loudly enough for the phone to catch him, scrolling on the tablet Charlie had handed him as he read about opening the gates of hell. “Tell Sam that the book version of him isn’t as hot as the real version.”

 

A resigned sigh came from the phone, and he grinned.

 

“Look, we’ll be home late tomorrow, maybe early the next day,” Dean told her (them, because Gabriel was eavesdropping—was it eavesdropping when the other person knew you were listening?). “We’ve got a few things to straighten up here. You’ll be okay until then, right?”

 

“Relax, Dean, we’ve got things under control here. See you soon.”

 

Gabriel managed to get to the books where Castiel appeared, and it became increasingly apparent that what he had been seeing with now-Dean and Cas wasn’t a new thing. “I thought Dean was straight,” he commented casually, gauging Charlie’s reaction.

 

She went very still for a split second before turning and raising an eyebrow at him. “Dean’s the straightest person I’ve ever met. Well, I mean one time he told me how to flirt with a guy so I could get Dick Roman’s personal files, but it wasn’t really that different from flirting with a girl in all honesty.”

 

Gabriel raised the tablet. “So what you’re saying is that there is no way that my brother and Dean have any type of interest in each other that isn’t platonic?”

 

She kept a straight face for all of five seconds. “Oh, thank god someone else sees it too.” She buried her face in her hands. “I thought it was there when I read the books after meeting them, but then I met Cas too and oh man, you have no idea how awesome this is. I thought I was delusional.”

 

“Honestly, it wouldn’t be hard to be delusional after meeting the Winchesters.”

 

“True.”

 

“So are they actually fucking?”

 

Charlie shook her head. “No way. Cas lost his virginity to a reaper chick—total bitch, by the way—and Dean’s about as far into the closet as you can get, if we’re actually right about it.”

 

Gabriel sat up straight in his chair. “What if we actually locked them into a closet together?”

 

Charlie burst out laughing. “Oh my god, you’re five.”

 

“I spent the last few centuries being a god of mischief; I think I deserve a little more time to break out of that particular bubble.”

 

 

 

 

By the time the boys got back, Gabriel felt almost completely normal…well, the normal he had without his full archangel power and strength. So much so that he got up from his place in his bed to greet the boys in the kitchen. Well, to greet Sam. Castiel nodded at him on his way there, and Dean brushed past him without a word. He heard a creak of bedsprings a second later, indicating that one of them had crashed out on their bed, and the shower started a second after that.

 

“Oh, sorry, did we wake you?” Sam apologized immediately when he saw Gabriel standing in the doorway.

 

“No, I’ve been up,” Gabriel responded. He’d slept so much in the last few days that he felt wide awake now. “Heard you come in, figured you might need some help putting things away.”

 

Sam shot him a strange look. “Thanks, but it’s not a lot.” He looked like he might say something else, but then his mouth closed and he turned to pick up a duffle bag on the floor and carried it out, presumably to put up the few weapons that they only took when they needed to. His shoulder brushed up against Gabriel’s as he walked past, and for a second Gabriel couldn’t breathe. He stared at the kitchen sink and swallowed hard, trying so hard to scrunch that feeling in his chest back down. _No,_ he thought. _Not again._

 

He turned to go back to his room and put a pillow over his head in an attempt to block out his own thoughts, and almost ran straight into Sam. Sam put a hand on his shoulder to steady him and chuckled quietly. “I take it you’re feeling better.”

 

“I also know more about your sex life than I ever thought I would,” Gabriel blurted out before he could stop himself. For a second he seriously considered how much force it would take to kill himself if he were to ram his head into the wall.

 

Sam’s eyebrows furrowed before his eyes closed. “You actually read the books, didn’t you.”

 

“I think I like Charlie,” Gabriel said, grinning in relief. “She’s got a lot of dirt on you two. And her taste in TV and movies is impeccable.”

 

Sam sighed, letting his hand fall away from Gabriel’s shoulder. “Goodnight, Gabe.”

 

Gabriel let him go, and wondered when it was that he’d allowed a human to get under his skin.

 

 

 

 

The boys were considerably more relaxed around Charlie than Gabriel. The next morning Dean gave her a warm hug and asked her about what she’d been doing lately, if she’d met anyone, how she enjoyed the last Comic Con she went to. Sam didn’t talk much, but his mouth curved upward at the corners and his shoulders weren’t so stiff. They looked happy, and it made Gabriel feel like he was intruding on something private, like he didn’t belong.

 

And he didn’t, he thought absently. He didn’t belong here, not with these broken boys and their broken angel that kept themselves stitched together with the little ragtag family they’d pulled together. They’d protected him because that’s what they did: took care of those who couldn’t take care of themselves. But he’d overstayed his welcome. It was time to get ready to go.

 

With the Winchesters distracted by Charlie, it was easy to slip down to the range and practice shooting for hours with various guns. He got better, almost always hit exactly where he meant to, and stopped flinching at the echo of the shot when it reverberated through the room. He began taking throwing knives down too, practiced hurling them at the mannequins again and again and again, until he stopped missing altogether.

 

Sam had gotten him a few necessities, like a toothbrush and some shampoo and body wash that was girly and fruity as a joke. Gabriel liked it so much that he actually got him more, as well as clothes that made him blend in a little more with the Winchesters. He stole one of the black duffle bags in one of the storage closets and began packing all of this away a couple of days before Charlie was due to leave. He was slow, just grabbing a couple things here and there, until Charlie was packing up her own things and he quietly pulled her aside to ask for a ride to the nearest bus station.

 

She frowned. “Where are you going?”

 

He shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Somewhere else, I suppose.”

 

She crossed her arms over her chest and he suddenly felt like maybe this wouldn’t be so easy. “Why do you want to leave?”

 

He sighed. “Because it’ll be better in the long run. Eventually word is going to get out that Gabriel the Archangel is alive, and there’s going to be a price on my head. They’re going to want to know how I came back from the dead when it’s hardly ever been done before.”

 

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And how is that word going to get out, do you suppose? There are five people in the entire world that know of your existence right now. Six, if you count Kevin, but from what I’ve heard he’s usually got other things on his mind. Who’s going to tell?” When he didn’t answer, she went on. “Cut the bullshit Gabriel. Unless you can give me a good reason as to why you’re going, I’m not taking you anywhere. You can walk your ass down to the bus station.”

 

He looked at her steadily. “I’ve spent a long time doing what was best for me, to keep myself alive. Then I let my brother kill me because it was what was good for the world at the time, what would help the Winchesters defeat Lucifer. I went against my family for them. My leaving will be good for these boys, and for my little brother too. They’ve taken care of me, and I’m grateful, but I’m not wanted or needed here.”

 

“Oh my god, you’re seriously just like them.” Charlie made an aborted movement to grab his shoulders, stopped, and then went through with it anyways. She shook him a little. “Seriously, you guys have to quit it with the martyring yourselves and the awful self esteem. You’re a motherfucking archangel, for Christ’s sake.”  


“Kind of insulting my bro Jesus there.” His heart was sinking in his chest.

 

She ignored him. “Look, Gabe, I like you. You’re a cool guy. Kind of an asshole, but so am I, and so are Sam and Dean. I’d like to know that when I come back here when I’m in the area that I’ll see you again, or that maybe I’ll get a call from them and hear you in the background. So unless you legitimately don’t want to be here, I’m not taking you anywhere.”

 

Gabriel couldn’t look her in the eye.

 

“That’s what I thought.”

 

He made his way down to the range and carefully put the guns he had taken into their places.

 

A knock on his door late that night made him raise his head from the tablet that he was still reading the Supernatural books on (he was determined to finish before Charlie left the next afternoon and took it with her.) “You know, if the door’s open, it means I’m not naked in here,” he said dryly when he looked up to see Sam standing in the doorway.

 

“Charlie said you wanted to leave.”

 

Well.

 

Gabriel carefully put down the tablet and sat up straight, criss-crossing his legs for better balance. “I figured it was about time,” he answered carefully.

 

“You know you—you don’t have to leave.” Sam leaned against the door frame, one ankle crossed over the other, hands shoved in his pockets. “It’s not exactly like we have to pay rent for the place.” He cleared his throat, eyes shifting to the ground. “Besides, Cas likes having you here. You’re kind of the only angel around that doesn’t want to kill him lately.”

 

“Well, he did get the entire host of Heaven kicked out of their home,” Gabriel pointed out. “I’d be pissed about it too if I hadn’t already left for greener pastures.” He shrugged. “I appreciate you and your brother helping me get back on my feet. Really. But I’ve caused you two more harm than good in the time that we’ve known each other. I think it’d be best if we went our separate ways.”

 

Sam shook his head. “That’s not—Gabriel, that was a long time ago. Believe me, worse has happened since then. I mean…” He laughed helplessly. “Your brother literally made me crazy, and we still like him.”

 

“That’s because of his puppy eyes and your brother’s epic gay love for him,” Gabriel muttered.

 

Sam blinked. “Do you think locking them in a closet would get the metaphor through his head?”

 

Gabriel grinned.

 

“Do you really want to leave?” Sam asked. “Because if you don’t, no one’s making you. You can stay as long as you like.”

 

“Is this you telling me that you don’t actually want me to go?”

 

Sam looked away. “You’re not so bad,” he admitted uncomfortably. “No one’s going to force you to stay, but you’ll be safe here. Get your strength back, and if you can’t do that…” He trailed off uncertainly. “Well, I could teach you a few things.”

 

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “You want me to be a hunter?”

 

Sam shook his head. “No, but you could learn to defend yourself. I know you’ve gotten good with the guns, but what about close range?”

 

“I’ve been practicing with knives.”

 

Sam nodded slowly. “Well, what about hand-to-hand combat? It could be useful if you run into any unfriendly family.”

 

He looked so hopeful that Gabriel couldn’t find it in himself to say no. “As long as you promise you won’t let me win,” he grumbled. “And if I can teach you to cook. You guys aren’t bad, but it’s a little obvious you haven’t had an actual home for the majority of your lives.”

 

“Dean’s not going to like you insulting his cooking.”

 

“He’ll probably like it better than being killed one hundred days in a row,” Gabriel retorted.

 

“Watch it,” Sam warned. But he was smiling a little. “’Night, Gabe.”

 

It only registered a second later. “Did you just call me Gabe?”

 

“Is that alright?”

 

“Yeah.” Sam paused in closing the door, blinking like he hadn’t realized it. “That okay?”

 

Gabriel nodded slowly, and Sam’s smile grew as he left.

 

 

 

 

He was really terrible at hand-to-hand combat.

 

“You’re keeping your hands too high,” Sam said patiently as Gabriel got to his feet—again. “You need to be able to defend a hit to any part of yourself, not just your face.”

 

“I’ve got to stay pretty for the ladies somehow,” Gabriel snarked, but he spread his feet apart again and raised his fists, lowering them a little. Sam nodded approvingly, then lashed out with his foot, sweeping Gabriel’s legs from under him and sending him crashing down. “Hey!” he exclaimed.

 

“No one’s going to play nice if they’re trying to kill you,” Sam instructed, pulling him up by the hand and steadying him by the shoulder. “You have to learn to expect an attack to come at any time, from any angle. If you’re lucky, you’ll be up against someone that broadcasts what they’re planning to do so you can counter it.”

 

Gabriel swung his other fist up and caught a glancing blow across Sam’s face. A second later his wrist was twisted behind his back painfully and Sam had him shoved up against a wall. “Maybe we should build up your strength first,” Sam mused somewhere above Gabriel’s head. He ignored him, trying not to focus on the fact that he was _pinned against a wall._ It was the first time in his existence that someone had ever overpowered him like that by someone that wasn’t remotely supernatural (well, not anymore) and he got an image of Sam shoving him up against a wall for another reason.

 

It didn’t help the situation.

 

“Alright, let me go,” he said, slightly muffled from the way his cheek was smushed to the wall. “You’ve proved your point, you can totally hit me without getting turned to dust now.”

 

“That’s not my point,” Sam protested, but he released him all the same. Gabriel rubbed his wrist where Sam had left red marks from his fingers. “But if you can build up strength and endurance, this might come easier for you.” His eyes flicked down to Gabriel’s wrist and Gabriel let go automatically before he could figure out why. There was a flash of _something_ before Sam turned away and gestured for Gabriel to follow him. “I’ve got an idea.”

 

Five minutes later Gabriel was laughing so hard he was doubled over. “ _Yoga_?” he giggled. “Are you serious?”

 

“It’s good for your core, which will help with your endurance, which is good for your strength,” Sam explained.

 

“I’m not doing yoga,” Gabriel said flatly. No matter how good Sam’s ass might look in any one of those positions. And oh dad, he really had to stop thinking about Sam’s ass.

 

“Cas enjoys it,” Sam said mildly, as said angel/human came through the room with a container of what looked suspiciously like pie. Cas froze at his name, but when he saw the yoga mats, he smiled and hurried on.

 

“Which is why Cas is the girl in his and Dean’s weird relationship,” Gabriel pointed out.

 

“Their nonexistent relationship,” Sam corrected.

 

Gabriel wanted to keep arguing the logistics of it, but Castiel came back in loose sweatpants that he suspected had belonged to Dean before and an old wife beater that had definitely belonged to Dean before. Sam nodded approvingly. “Run Gabe through the stretches for a few minutes so I can unwrap,” he said.

 

“Sure thing.” And then Cas—since when did he start referring to him as Cas even in his own head?—maneuvered him onto one of the mats and told Gabriel to do what he did. Gabriel scowled at him, but did it anyways, figuring that the sooner this was over, the better.

 

He was wrong.

 

He was already feeling the beginnings of an ache from being thrown on the floor by Sam for half an hour. Stretching out those muscles now sped the process up times three, and he was very close to walking out and laying in bed for the rest of the day when Sam came back minus the cloth wraps he’d had around his knuckles (Gabriel had forgone them, interested in seeing if his healing was still superhuman) _and_ the t-shirt he’d been wearing during their fighting session. Gabriel turned his focus back to Cas as Sam set up another mat in front of his own and very pointedly ignored the smirk Sam shot in his direction.

 

_Bastard._

 

Sam started out easy, poses that Gabriel could slip into without much difficulty. He knew what it took to work a human body without cheating, and it didn’t take long to find his balance, how much he could do before he had to stop, and to find an ache in his muscles that felt good instead of irritating. And Sam seemed to know how much he could take too, all in careful once-overs and a carefully attuned ear to Gabriel’s breath. He tried his best not to be too pleased about that, because these pants would hide absolutely nothing, and there are things Sam doesn’t need to know.

 

And then it’s been an hour and Sam’s calling it a day, rolling up the mats and asking Cas in a low voice to try the yoga thing with Dean again. Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “You’re trying to get Dean to want to have sex with him, aren’t you?”

 

“Dean already wants to,” Sam replied. “But I’ve learned a few things over the years, and one of those is that yoga can be sexy. It also helps strengthen your core, which helps with a lot more than just our line of work.” He was smiling like he knew exactly what Gabriel was thinking.

 

“You sound like you have experience with that,” Gabriel commented, forcing his voice not to waver.

 

“I took a class during college,” Sam explained. “Then a friend introduced me to Jess, who was in the class too…” He trailed off and his face darkened into something sad and angry at the same time.

 

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said quietly. There had been something in the books about Brady, one of the demons in charge of keeping Sam in sight when he broke off from his family. He’d killed Jess, setting off the chain of events that essentially ruined the Winchesters’ entirely lives.

 

Sam shrugged. “It was a long time ago.” But his shoulders were hunched, a stark difference from the loose limbs of before. He avoided looking at Gabriel, and he chose that moment to make a quiet exit to the bathroom to shower.

 

 

 

 

He expected Sam to be a little distant for a few days and lectured himself before going to sleep that he should respect that, but no later than eight the next morning did the younger Winchester come bounding into his room, turning on the lights _and_ taking the blankets away. “You’re coming running with me,” he announced as Gabriel yanked a pillow over his head.

 

“No.”

 

He lost the wrestling match for his pillow.

 

 

 

 

Dean and Cas were eating breakfast when they returned, Sam somehow looking like a supermodel and Gabriel still trying to catch his breath.

 

“You’re a wimp,” Dean said, sipping at coffee.

 

Gabriel dumped a cup of water over his head.

 

Sam burst out laughing as Dean spluttered furiously, getting up to grab a towel. “You know, you don’t have to run with Sam,” Cas said mildly. “He did the same thing to me once and I never went running.”

  
“He stole my pillow!”

 

“Dude, you have more than one pillow,” Sam pointed out, grinning behind a water bottle.

 

Gabriel knew he probably looked like a fish, but he didn’t care. Finally he managed to get out, “I hate all of you,” before stalking out of the kitchen, ignoring Dean’s, “Except for Sam!” behind him. He slammed the door shut to his room, stripped out of his sweaty clothes and flopped down into the bed. But he was too awake now, and with a groan he went to take a shower.

 

Sam was on the phone when he walked out into the library. “Sounds good, Jody,” he was saying. “I’ll come up tomorrow evening to check it out. Alright. Bye.” He looked up at Gabriel as he sat down in a chair across from him. “So that was a friend in Sioux Falls,” he said. “She thinks she’s got a ghoul in town, couple people have died with slit wrists, and the last one said that someone did it _to_ her, and then took the blood. Want to go up with me?”

 

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “No Dean?”

 

Sam shrugged. “Cas hasn’t seen Star Wars. This’ll be the perfect time for Dean to introduce him to it.”

 

“And people say _you’re_ the nerd.”

 

Sam huffed a laugh. “So? How about it? You’re good with knives.”

 

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I thought you weren’t going to make me a hunter.”

 

“I’m not.”

  
And Sam was smiling at him with those puppy dog eyes and before he knew it, he was packing up a bag for the ride up to South Dakota thinking, _I am so completely fucked._

They left that afternoon after Gabriel test drove one of the cars, proving that he did, in fact, know how to drive one. “I thought the Norse gods weren’t a fan of human things,” Sam commented about an hour into the trip, Gabriel behind the wheel. (They were not driving the Impala; Dean had been adamant that no one besides him and Sam were getting behind the wheel of that, not even Cas.)

 

“Being Loki had a few perks,” Gabriel replied. “I exploited those, obviously.”

 

“Obviously.” Gabriel chanced a glance over at Sam in the passenger seat and found him smiling warmly, relaxed back against the window with his body turned towards Gabriel. His stomach flipped. “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t take advantage of everything at your fingertips.”

 

“Hell no,” Gabriel agreed, forcing his voice to stay steady despite the fact that he now knew Sam was looking right at him with every word. “There’s a reason I didn’t wait for you to teach me how to use the guns.”

 

“Well, I would’ve whenever you wanted,” Sam said dryly. “Dean’s the one who thought you might shoot up the bunker if we gave you that kind of power.”

 

“Does he remember that I was a trickster when you met me?”

 

“I don’t think he really cares to remember.”

 

Gabriel grinned.

 

He wasn’t surprised when Sam fell asleep about a hundred miles later, head tilted back in the space between the corner of the door and the headrest. He quite wanted to watch, but the road required more concentration now that he didn’t have the enhanced senses of an angel (or not as enhanced as before.)

 

Sam switched with him when there were two hours left, and Gabriel gratefully curled up against the seat, back against the window, seat belt disregarded completely. “If we crash you’re going to go flying,” Sam said dubiously before he even started driving.

 

Gabriel drew his feet up onto the seat and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. “Pretty sure the only time you crashed a car was because a demon t-boned you with an eighteen wheeler,” he muttered. “I’ll take my chances.”

 

Sam made an uncertain noise, but he fell asleep with Sam’s hand on his foot, thumb stroking his ankle above his sock.

 

He woke up when they entered town, the sun already fallen behind the hills, and ten minutes later they pulled up outside what he assumed was Jody’s house. A brown haired woman that looked like she might be in her forties came out as Sam was putting the car in park, meeting him just outside the car door to hug him warmly. Gabriel busied himself with grabbing their bags out of the trunk, leaving most of the weapons that seemed to be a permanent fixture of the car. When he looked up, the woman was talking to Sam, but looking at him, and when she saw him staring she smiled. “I don’t think we’ve met,” she said kindly.

 

There was a fleeting thought that, just a few years before, maybe even a few months, Gabriel would have laughed at the idea of being polite to _anyone._ He was an archangel; he was the thing of legends and something millions of people on earth worshipped. But looking into her soft eyes, welcoming and without any hostility at all, he found himself smiling back. “I’m Gabriel.”

 

She only looked a little surprised. “The archangel?”  


“That’s the one.”

 

She laughed, shaking her head. “I should’ve known. Anyone who’s met the Winchesters seems to have a hard time staying dead. No offense,” she added immediately. “I know that’s sort of a sore spot for some people.”

 

Sam took one of the bags from him and he shrugged with his free shoulder. “I don’t think they’ve told you much about me,” he said lightly. “You’d probably wish me a lot of offense if you knew the hell I put these boys through before they knew I was the messenger of God and all of that.”

 

“It was a long time ago,” Sam said, and he glanced at him expecting his face to be tense, his smile to be tight. But he was already looking at Gabriel, and his eyes were bright with amusement and affection. He averted his eyes before he could do something stupid, like make heart eyes.

 

Jody was looking between them with something like a smirk on her face. “Come inside. I’ve got dinner on the table.”

 

A dark haired girl was spooning mashed potatoes onto her plate, two bites already taken from her burger. “Alex!” Jody scolded. “I told you to wait.”

 

Alex pointedly shoved a bite of potatoes in her mouth. “But I’ve got work in the morning!” she said around them. “I need sleep!”

 

Jody rolled her eyes. “You remember Sam, right?”

 

Alex broke into a grin when she swallowed. “I see you still haven’t gotten a haircut.”

 

“I see you’re…uh, settling in well,” Sam stuttered when Jody threw him a look that clearly meant _Don’t encourage her._

 

Gabriel sat down next to Sam at the table, not hesitating in making up his own burger and getting some corn and potatoes. He waited for Jody to get food and start eating before eating himself, still feeling a little offset by his sudden urge to be a good houseguest. Sam nudged him. “You okay?” he asked in a low voice.

 

“Yeah, why?”

 

“You’re being nice.” Gabriel opened his mouth to protest, or maybe explain, but Sam was grinning at him again with that same affection. Gabriel nudged him back and felt the corner of his mouth twitch up, though he still snarked, “Someone has to be polite around here. You’re a hopeless case, obviously.”

 

Alex snorted with laughter across the table. “So who are you then?” she asked.

 

“Gabriel,” he answered. “The archangel.”

 

Alex stared at him for a long moment, then turned to Jody. “What happened to the ‘no angels in the house’ rule?”

 

“Just the ones Sam and Dean aren’t friends with,” Jody amended now. “Now eat, these two are here on business and you were right when you said you have work in the morning.”

 

“So how did you two come to be acquainted with the supernatural?” Gabriel inquired as casually as he could manage without erupting into unmanly giggles.

 

“I was kidnapped by vampires when I was little,” Alex told him. “These guys rescued me a few months back and Jody took me in.”

 

“I came into it via the apocalypse,” Jody said. “Hell of a way to realize that the town drunk was actually the town drunk for a very good reason.” She frowned a little. “It wasn’t so nice, finding out that my son had come back from the grave only to have to…”

She trailed off and Alex wrapped a hand around her wrist, squeezing comfortingly.

 

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said truthfully.

 

Alex went up to her room after dinner and Jody filled Gabriel and Sam in on the situation with the ghoul. “They like to travel in pairs,” Sam said, biting his lip and looking at the places Jody had marked with the “suicides” and the one attack that lived. “And they take the face of someone they’ve killed before. Anyone gone missing lately?”

 

“Not for a few months, but there was a couple that went hiking and moved out of town pretty quickly a couple of weeks ago,” Jody responded. “I can look into it, if it’ll help.” She folded up the map. “But right now, it’s getting late, and I have an early morning at the station too. I’ll get you in to interview the patient tomorrow.”

 

“Uh, I don’t think—I think I should probably let you do that on your own,” Gabriel said uncertainly. “I’m still trying to grasp this whole ‘not laughing at others’ pain’ thing. I might not be a lot of help.”

 

Sam nodded slowly. “How about you come along, but don’t say anything, and then laugh at the ghouls when we cut their heads off?” he suggested. “Makes you look like more of a complete psycho, but no one’s going to know but me and Jody, and I know better than to judge you for that.”

 

Jody raised an eyebrow. “What exactly did you do?”

 

“Well, I did kind of kill Dean a hundred days in a row on a time loop,” Gabriel said sheepishly. “Before the apocalypse thing. I knew where it was going and Sam was holding on too tight.” He sighed. “Of course I wound up dying for their cause later anyways, but whatever. I tried. Sam’s damn puppy eyes made me fail, but it was a good effort.”

 

“I still hate Tuesdays,” Sam mumbled.

 

Jody shook her head. “Well, if the Winchesters like you, I can’t really complain.”

 

She only had one extra room. Gabriel offered to take the couch in the living room until Sam waved him off. “We’ll fit,” he said. “You’re little anyways. How much space can you take up?”

 

He took the second shower, and by the time he returned to the room Gabriel was sprawled out across the bed, face shoved into a pillow, just barely awake despite the fact that the lamp was still on. Sam raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to have a problem sticking to your side of the bed, aren’t you.”

 

Gabriel shifted his limbs so that his body was vaguely more aligned under the covers, sleepily gesturing for Sam to get the lamp. The bed creaked a little as Sam got in, but the room went dark a second later and he fell asleep easier than he had since his return, with that line of heat just a little ways away.

 

 

 

 

“I was hoping you boys would show up,” Mindy said softly, tilting her head to the side. “But I suppose one of you will do.” Her eyes gleamed in the dark and she punched Sam in the face where he was kneeling in front of her, sending him reeling. Gabriel jerked forward, raising his knife, but a hand wrapped around his throat from behind and _squeezed_ , and Mindy added, “Don’t move, or you’ll be sliced open here and now.” She grinned predatorily. “I’d rather enjoy my meal. How does that sound, Ty?”

 

Gabriel could feel the breath of the ghoul holding him flare across his ear and he swallowed in revulsion. “Let’s tie them up and have a little fun,” Ty hissed, and the little girl giggled almost innocently, if she wasn’t currently uncoiling a rope from a hook on the wall and tugging Sam’s wrists behind his back to knot them together.

 

“Yeah, I’ve never really been a big fan of doing what I’m told,” Gabriel choked out, twisting a hand and reaching into his pocket. “Archangel and all that. Doesn’t sit right. So fuck you very much.” And he stabbed blindly black into the ghoul’s stomach.

 

Horrible nails that shouldn’t belong on a human being scraped down the inside of his arm and blood welled up immediately. The hand on his throat tightened even as the other hand brought his wrist up to the mouth hovering over his shoulder and he shuddered as he felt the blood being sucked from his veins.

 

“Gabriel!” he heard Sam yelling, but it sounded far away and he was only dimly aware of his knees hitting the concrete floor. The grip on him was loosening and he collapsed completely. He watched in fascination as his own blood pooled under his arm, staining his shirt. _Sam’s shirt,_ he remembered. Like these boys needed to sacrifice anymore clothing to the supernatural. He’d be angrier about that if he didn’t feel so fuzzy.

  
There was a sickening sound of metal on bone and a thud that sounded like a body hitting the floor. Maybe he was still falling. Though it felt more like flying, if a little bit too bumpy. “Dammit Gabriel, open your eyes.” That was Sam. Oh good, he was alive. He’d have to apologize about the shirt. “Forget about the shirt,” Sam huffed, and then, “Yes, you are talking out loud, now shut up and let me wrap you up. Those sons of bitches, probably gave you tetanus or something. Fuck, you’re going to need a shot now. I hate ghouls.”

 

“Did it work?” Gabriel rasped weakly, in part because of the loss of blood and the other part because of the pressure that had been on his windpipe just a little while ago.

 

“Letting him cut you open? Yeah, it worked.” Sam sounded angry and Gabriel frowned. He shouldn’t be angry. He said as much.

 

“He hurt you!” Sam shouted, and Gabriel realized that his hands were shaking where he held the steering wheel. Oh. They were driving. He wanted to tell Sam that he shouldn’t drive when he was on the edge of an emotional breakdown, but he settled for rolling his eyes and leaning his head against the window as the trees sped by, until they reached Jody’s house and Sam was carrying him bridal style to the door, ignoring his complaints about it.

 

“Calm down,” Jody said the second she saw Sam’s face. Gabriel kind of wanted to see if he still had that crease between his eyebrows, but he couldn’t crane his neck the right way, and Sam’s shoulder felt better than moving anyways. “Here, put him on the couch. Can you sit up, Gabriel?”

 

“Yes,” he grumbled, shoving Sam’s shoulder a little when he sat right next to him. “Stop being a mother hen, Winchester.”

 

“I was thinking more concerned boyfriend,” Alex said from the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. Her cheeks were pale though and her eyes were fixed on the long scratches down Gabriel’s arm like she couldn’t look away.

 

“Alex, get the first aid kit under my bed,” Jody instructed. The girl tore her gaze away and dashed up the stairs like she could run away. Gabriel wished he could. Who knew that fingernails could hurt so much?

 

A moment later he yelped as it stung violently. “Yeah, you probably won’t like this,” Jody said unnecessarily, dabbing more alcohol into the cuts.

 

“I didn’t like being stabbed by my brother,” he hissed between his teeth as she took out a needle and— “Oh John, you’re going to stitch me up.”  


Sam shot him a look. “What?”

 

“Well you say my dad’s name all the time,” Gabriel retorted, before the unpleasant feeling of poking and threading began and he whimpered pathetically. Sam moved a hand to the back of his neck, thumb digging into the soft hair where it met his skin, and he tipped his head back into it without thinking. He sighed as Sam’s fingernails lightly scratched his scalp.

 

As soon as Jody was finished bandaging his arm, he felt his eyelids drooping with sleep. Sam nudged him up the stairs and into a bathroom. “You should change out of those clothes,” he said quietly. All the fury had left his voice, leaving behind exhaustion and something sad.

 

Gabriel stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “I meant to let him drink the blood,” he told him, suddenly desperate for him to understand. The surge of sudden energy left him dizzy, but he held on anyways, looking up so that Sam would be forced to meet his eyes. “An archangel’s blood, it’s powerful enough to kill a creature like that. I just wanted to buy you some time. I…I didn’t want you to die.”

 

“I wasn’t going to die,” Sam scoffed, but the crease in his brow was gone and he touched Gabriel’s elbow where it was bent between them. “Thanks,” he added, and then he was gently closing the door behind him. Gabriel’s stomach dropped with something he didn’t want to think about as he pulled the clothes left by Sam on slowly, splashing his face with water and brushing his teeth before quietly going back to their shared room.

 

Sam walked past him without a word, so he got into bed and laid on his side facing the window, thinking of things he could say to make Sam laugh, or smile, or even look at him with that “I don’t know why I deal with you” expression. But Sam was back before he could come up with something, and the light was switched off. The bed dipped on the other side, and after another minute, the dip rolled over and suddenly Gabriel was being cradled against a very firm chest that he would think harder about if he weren’t so tired.

 

“I’m not the little spoon,” he mumbled.

 

“Go to sleep, Gabe.”

 

He did.

 

 

 

 

Sam drove them all the way back the next day, despite Gabriel’s protests that he could drive with one hand and Jody’s invitations to stay as long as they wanted. Sam shook his head, packed their things, and bundled Gabriel into the passenger seat like he was a child to be manhandled. “Like I could manhandle you if I tried,” Sam replied, and then stopped. “Wait. Can I?”

 

“Let’s test that out later when I have both arms to fight back with,” Gabriel decided, completely serious. Sam got a strange look on his face, and then he grinned, shaking his head with something fond in his eyes.

 

Dean yelled at Gabriel when they got back. “You idiot, you can bleed out now! You can die!” he shouted.

 

“Oh Dean, I didn’t know I meant that much to you,” Gabriel said, holding a hand up to his heart.

 

Dean’s face went red and he stormed out. After touching Gabriel’s shoulder, Castiel followed, and then Sam was right there in front of him. He’d been around humanity long enough to know that this was breaking the boundaries of personal space. He thought about saying that to Sam, but when he opened his mouth, a hand cupped his cheek and there were warm lips pressed to his own and, yeah, this was pretty much what he’d wanted all along. He brought his uninjured arm up so that he could tangle his hand in Sam’s hair and settled for gripping his hip with the other lightly to avoid pulling his stitches, and kissed languidly back, like he had all the time in the world.

 

Sam bit down on his lip and he shuddered so hard that he rocked up on his toes, and that’s when Sam pulled away with a huff of laughter. “This isn’t the right time to be doing this,” he murmured, but he was still stroking his thumb over Gabriel’s cheekbone and he touched their foreheads together like he couldn’t move away.

 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I’m not in a full-body cast, Sam,” he said reasonably. “You can’t break me.”

 

“I thought we agreed to test that later.”

 

Gabriel leaned up to kiss him again. “It is later.”

 

Sam hooked his fingers in his belt loops and dragged him back to his room.

 

 

 

 

Yeah.

 

Sam could manhandle him.

 

Gabriel kind of liked it.


End file.
